Fury After Titty Is Renamed 'Tatty' In BBC's New Swallows And Amazons

The family of Mavis ‘Titty’ Altounyan, who was immortalised in the 'Swallows and Amazons’ series of books, has expressed its anger at her character being renamed 'Tatty’ in a new BBC adaptation.

Barbara Altouyan, the niece of Titty, has called the move 'disgustingly pompous’, and has said that the family are 'absolutely furious’.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, she said: “I would absolutely wring someone’s neck if could only find out whose neck I could ring.

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“It’s just the most disgustingly pompous thing to do, to feel you can change somebody’s identity without any permission or discussion.”

She added that the family had made their concerns over the name change known to the film’s producers, but it had made 'no impact whatsoever’.

“Now, for the sake of political correctness, she is to be insulted with the name of Tatty in the film,” she added, calling her late aunt 'a very well-educated person who knew something of the world’.

“[She] would be so angry to be called Tatty.”

A new movie of Arthur Ransome’s book was announced by BBC Films in 2011, when it was first mooted that the name Titty would be changed to avoid offence to modern audiences.

Though christened Mavis, she went by the name Titty after her love of the story 'Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse’.

Ransome based the children from the book on the children of his friends, the Altounyan family, after teaching them to sail one summer in the Lake District.

The book, the first of a series of twelve, was published in 1930.

Producers of the film told the Telegraph they were unable to comment on the matter.

A BBC adaptation in 1963 also renamed the character Kitty, while another film version released in 1974, not produced by the BBC, kept the name Titty.

Image credits: Rex Features